More details have emerged about the new Batman game, with Rocksteady confirming no multiplayer, a new villain, and Kevin Conroy.

Although in the announcement yesterday Warner Bros. confirmed that Arkham Knight would be out this year, they never gave any date. However, retailers have once again let the cat out of the bag, with GameSpot suggesting October 14 in North America.

The date still hasn’t been taken down from their website, so Warner presumably doesn’t mind everyone knowing. The 14th is a Tuesday, which may mean an October 17 release in the UK. Although Arkham Knight is certainly a big enough game to warrant a simultaneous worldwide release.

Further details on the game have also emerged from American mag Game Informer (which is itself owned by GameSpot). In it Arkham Knight is revealed to be the name of a new supervillian, created specifically for the game by comics writer Geoff Johns. What the new bad guy looks like isn’t yet known, but it sounds like he’s a sort of anti-Batman style character who uses guns.

Kevin Conroy has been confirmed as the voice of Batman/Bruce Wayne – after working on Arkham Aslyum and City, but not Origins. Following his involvement in Batman: The Animated Series, and many of the other DC cartoons, he’s considered the definitive Batman voice by most fans.

Also returning to their roles from the earlier games will be Nolan North as The Penguin, Wally Wingert as The Riddler, Troy Baker as Two-Face, and Tara Strong as Harley Quinn. Mark Hamill will not be returning to play The Joker, for reasons that the end of Arkham City should make clear.

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According to developer Rocksteady the game will take place in a new ‘central zone’ of Gotham City, which is split into three island and is roughly five times the size of Arkham City. That’s still not that large compared to other open world games, but Rocksteady are emphasising that they want their world to be the most detailed and vibrant, not the biggest.
They’re also adamant that the game will not have any multiplayer, and that the studio is focused on ‘making the best single-player experience it can’.

Although the phrasing is slightly ambiguous it doesn’t sound as if Gotham City will feature much in the way of civilians or normal traffic, as Scarecrow is threatening to flood Gotham with his fear toxin (as seen in the trailer) and the city has been evacuated. According to Game Informer that means only criminals are left in the city, with fives times the number of thugs compared to Arkham City and riots of up to 50 characters at a time.

Confidant Oracle is also back in the game, and a character you physically meet this time. Although wheelchair bound in the games she was previous Batgirl in the comics – but it’s unclear whether she’ll take on that role again in the new game. Oracle is also the daughter of Commissioner Gordon, and her remaining in the city against his will is apparently a key plot point.

The game’s much admired combat system maintains its elegant simplicity, but there will be numerous tweaks, including being able to use quickfire gadgets in mid-air and new throw counters that allow you to grab and throw enemies into each other.

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Although the gadgets will also be upgraded and tweaked the Batmobile is the most important bit of new tech in the game and designed to be ‘the best car in any game ever’, according to Rocksteady. You can call it to your location at any time and it can do jumps, boosts, burnouts, and rotate in a circle even when stationary (presumably inspired by that scene in Batman Returns).

In terms of graphics Rocksteady insist they’re trying to make the game look as much like pre-rendered CGI (such as in the trailer) as possible, with the polygon count for one character apparently being as big as the whole of the Arkham Asylum environment.

Rocksteady describe Arkham Knight as a ‘genuine next-gen game’ and that not having to make the game for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 was key to being able to do everything they wanted.

‘Obviously, you see a lot of games that are cross-gen, and they feel a bit reined in because of that,’ said director Sefton Hill. ‘Because we were able to make that decision quite early, we were able to be more ambitious with the design and make a real, genuine next-gen game’.

But Rocksteady has also given some interesting hints as to what will happen after Arkham Knight, insisting that their next game will not be Batman related (although that doesn’t necessarily rule out the rest of the DC Universe).

Although this will be the final part in the Arkham series, with Arkham Knight set quite late in Batman’s career, Rocksteady has also hinted that other Batman games will continue without them – presumably via Arkham Origins developer WB Games Montreal.